The Martlet

I was emailed a media release titled “UVic announces car free campus” the other day. Given that they’ve just banned bunnies, I figured the university’s administration must be on a roll.

Apparently they decided to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to building a sustainable campus. The release stated that people were leaving their automobiles around campus, forcing the university to “shoulder the burden of a growing population of cars.” The cars spew toxic fumes everywhere, consume unsustainable amounts of fossilized plant matter and inflict considerable damage to the campus environment, requiring campus maintenance personnel to build and maintain the spaces where they’re parked.

As I read on, I learned UVic’s administration had committed itself to eliminating the campus car population by way of a cull: poisoning them with sugar in their tanks, bashing their engines with big hammers, etc. Due to cries of inhumane treatment from students, faculty and community members, however, UVic officials revised their plan, instead opting to snip fuel lines and ship cars off to refuges. Parking lots, along with campus lawns, would be reclaimed for productive uses such as growing food for the many cash-strapped members of the local community and creating paths for cyclists and pedestrians.

I was gobsmacked. Finally, “the Man” was starting to get it. But then I realized this move would make a considerable number of people connected to this campus quite angry. After all, many students appreciate the cars for a variety of defensible reasons. I wondered if UVic took these people’s views into consideration. Was there adequate consultation, or was this a decision made on high, without regard for the feelings and needs of decent students and faculty who love this campus’s unique culture?

Okay, I’ll drop the feigned gullibility. This press release was fake news, expertly crafted for a locally-based blog called “Many Politics.” Readers were compelled to stop and think about the way some issues are deemed problematic while others are given a pass.

UVic’s bunny population, recently sentenced to banishment despite the strident opposition of students and faculty alike, has been a contentious subject for as long as I’ve been connected to this campus. Love them or hate them, UVic’s rabbits are celebrities and the cause of many battles and news stories.

But what about the cars? Sure, they don’t dig little holes in campus turf or drop tiny bits of fertilizer here and there, but their impact on our environment and communities is far more intrusive than a bunch of feral rabbits. So, UVic: where’s the energy to do something meaningful about them?

Most people give cars a pass for their indiscretions because they provide us with mobility. There’s no such clemency for bunnies. Humanity is disposed to displacing and destroying anything that occupies the spaces we’ve appropriated for ourselves.

Disappointingly, UVic’s administration has no problem sanitizing our campus. After all, they have the unspoken support of those who excuse human impact on the environment. We’re a far more destructive force on the environment than bunnies, but you don’t see anyone calling for a reduction in the human population.

What disturbs me most about the rabbit “problem” is that it evidences misplaced priorities. For all the potential ways to manage the bunny population, UVic chose an unimaginative one over a thoughtful one.

Students are a thoughtful bunch, and I think it’s time to insist, in our cleverest ways, that our public and private institutions turn attention to the bigger problems confronting our common natural gifts.